grean water

This is a discussion on grean water within the Beginner Planted Aquarium forums, part of the Beginner Freshwater Aquarium category; -->
i need some suggestions on how to treat green water
i have a 30 gl high with 1 whisper power filter 20-40 gallon and ...

i need some suggestions on how to treat green water
i have a 30 gl high with 1 whisper power filter 20-40 gallon and an whisper internal filter for 10-30 gallons i have two 10 watt florescents for lighting
i tried chemicals and it worked for a while but than it came back
thanks

Ok folks, look here. What I am about to say is highly controversial. There are a million theories about why this does not work and is dangerous for your aquarium. I know this, but I choose to ignore the comments. Why? Because it is theory. In practice, i have done this personally a dozen times without any problems. And i have told another hundred people to do it and it works, without problems. So, i don't worry about theory. I worry about results. For the last 15 years I have been on the internet telling people to do this. NOBODY has EVER had a negative experience from this, when following my lead. So, here goes...

Turn off your light. Cover the tank with a dark blanket. Do not touch the aquarium again for 48 hours. Do not feed. Do not remove the blanket. Do not do anything. Nothing. Zip. Don't clean the filter pads. Don't do anything.

At the end of 48 hours remove the blanket. Turn on the light. Change 50% of the water for 3 consecutive days. Congratulations, your green water is gone.

By the way, you have green water due to excessive nutrient input. You need to identify what part of your aquarium routine is inadequate, or the problem will reoccur.

In 7 days i would appreciate it if you would post, telling all of the people who are about to criticize me that Pasfur, was in fact, right.

+1. As long as you don't have live plants in the tank to worry about, the blackout method absolutely works. I had read about it before hearing Pasfur suggesting the method, but I didn't need to worry about it until recently. One of my girlfriend's tanks started developing green water, and the other had some other algae issues. The 48 hour blackout was an absolute cure for both tanks. She moved the tanks with her over the summer to the NYC suburbs in southern NY state, and she thinks there were excess nutrients (phosphates probably) coming out of the tap there. The problem has ceased since she moved back to Maryland.

I do know from experience that a 48 hour blackout will absolutely kill anacharis (and probably a lot of other things) so you should try to find your live plants another home during the blackout, if possible.

I cannot imagine anywhere that plants grow that it remains sunny each and every day. So I see no reason why removing plants would be necessary. But to each their own. Those that did succumb could be replaced. But in my mind plants that would die after forty eight hours of darkness maybe aren't what I would want in my aquarium. I would be more worried about excess co2 levels during blackout if steps were not taken to control it.

I am surprised that more here don't already know about the blackout method. I know several members who have used it with great success. I used a version of it not 4 months ago although I didn't cover the tanks. I simply left the light off for 6 days and it killed the green water all the same. I even fed the fish the whole time. Will this work for others, I am not sure but gives another option.

As for plants that might suffer, never heard of them having a problem, not even Anacharis/Elodea. When I did my partial blackout the plants didn't suffer at all but were thankful the green water and some of the other algae was dying or dead. I know some that have done the blackout for 3 or even 4 days without killing Anacharis nor any high light high demand plants like Pellia or HC.

There are also theories out there as to why the blackout works so well. Some feel that green water is caused by excess lighting durations in the first place so the black out corrects that problem. After all, I can take my tap water, which is basically pure water, and leave it in the sun and grow green water in a couple days without much problem. Yah it doesn't last long if I don't feed it but I can grow pea soup for about 10 days.

Since I got rid of my green water and don't turn the lights on for more than 10 hours a day, sometimes not at all, it has never come back and it has been a good couple months. My plants, including Bacopa, wisteria, crypts and Anubias grow just fine.

good luck :D. i also tried the blackout method (however i didnt use the blanket) and in three days i saw a huge difference. then i cleaned out the whole tank purely because i was changing then whole thing.